Etsy finds

Ever since I was introduced to Etsy (Thanks to my cousin Hoolie's blog post awhile back.), I have been obsessed. Of course, I haven't really bought much from the site, but I just love looking at everything and telling everyone about it. Here are some of my etsy finds:


Here is another dress from Little Trends. Tessa wore it for one of my best friends' wedding ceremony.

I asked my Tita Lycette to check out this pattern on Etsy, and this is what she made for Tessa. I would never have been able to make it. She actually made two, but I stored one of them. Love the fabrics and love both the practicality (it's reversible!) and cuteness (the fabric combination is awesome) of the jacket!

Here is a doll that my friend customized for Tessa. She also has a store on Etsy called The Rice Babies.

Thanks Etsy for making me more addicted to searching for finds on-line!

Our Little Fashionista

My friend, Carlen, makes little trends for little girls and boys, and has been asked to make some dresses for a new store called the LBD store (aka The Little Black Dress Store). To introduce the store to the Vancouver community, LBD organized a fashion show, and Tessa, along with another cutie Ava, was asked to model Little Trends designs. Here is our little fashionista with her number one fans and her fellow models.

Happy Halloween

From Dora the Explorer and Optimus Prime...

Happy 2nd Birthday, Tessa!

Karch and Tessa Plus Madi

Madi, Tita M, and Uncle J were here for a few days. Madi spent some time with K & T when she was here. They both enjoyed her company.

Madi acted just like a good big sister to Tessa. It was so cute seeing them interact!

Swimming

This Summer, K & T’s activity has been swimming and lots of it! So, Ray has been taking Tessa to her first swimming lessons and Karch can now take lessons on his own. It’s so awesome that they both love the water. It not only keeps them busy, but it cools them down as we experience a very unusual-for-Vancouver heatwave!

May Days

We’ve been blessed with a streak of sun recently. So, we have been taking advantage of it. Today, we, along with Dan and Erika, took Karch and Tessa to the water park. This was Tessa’s first time, but she wasn’t as into it as Karch was! The water park we went to was in a park where they were having May Days, a yearly Ladner celebration, so Karch and Tessa got to line up for some rides. Actually, Tessa could only ride the train, but Karch rode his first rollercoaster ride on his own! It was such a busy day today that K & T were zonked out so early (hence, my multiple blogs).

On a side note, Tita M had a conference here in YVR, so we spent some time with her this weekend. Too bad, we didn’t take pictures in my camera or else I would have posted them. She’ll be back in August with the rest of her family, so that’s exciting. K loved playing with Madi the last time she was here.

May Birthdays

So many birthdays this May:

my mom, Spence (K & T's 3rd cousin), Dan, Aby, Monika, Charina, Mafin, my cousin Sissa, and Jaevon. Of course, we couldn't celebrate everyone's birthdays with them but we were lucky enough to be part of a couple of celebrations.

While my mom celebrated her birthday in Florida,

Dan and Aby celebrated their May birthdays in a joint celebration here in Tsawwassen.

Monika celebrated her special day with some dinner in downtown. Here we are in our usual poses.

Charina and Mafin just had their birthdays yesterday, but I didn't take any pictures. Spence and Sissa don't live near us. But we're sure they had a blast on their birthdays!

Happy May Birthdays, everyone!

Tulips!

A sign of Spring in our garden is when the tulips come out. We've made it sort of a tradition for K & T to take a picture beside these red blooms:

Of course, after a lot of K & T's TLC for the tulips, the tulips are now gone. Until next May!

Shapes and Numbers

Here's a proud Mommy moment:

Ummm, I think K and I will now work on number recognition...

Mother's Day

Yeah, I know I'm a little late blogging on Mother's Day. But this year, K actually knew the meaning of Mother's Day. He even greeted me! They even had a blast getting messy and painted some homemade gifts. We had a quiet Mother's Day, having dimsum with my mom and Lola. Then, we, along with Erika, visited Ray's mom . A belated Happy Mother's Day to all the moms and moms-to-be!

Twilight Mania

New Moon is being filmed here, and one of the sets is only 10 minutes from our house!

Here I am posing in front of Bella's trucks and Charlie's police car.

Here's Bella's house! There were tarps covering the house, so I had to put my camera in between the two tarps. I couldn't even step on the grass because it's private property. That's the film lighting on the picture's foreground.

Although I've been unlucky in my search for any celebrities, at least I was able to take some pictures of the set. They usually film scenes at night. Oh well. Maybe when Eclipse starts filmig in August, I'll get lucky and see some of the Twilight celebs!

Just because...

it's been awhile, I thought I'd post multiple blog entries. So, here are some shots of K & T.




We hope all of you had a wonderful Easter weekend!

The Next Canadian Idol?!

Yeah, maybe not...I guess, he takes after his mom's singing skills which are only limited to Magic Mic singing.

Warning: Dizziness might occur after watching this video.

Back from the Philippines

Well, after a long time of prepping for our Philippines trip, we finally made it there and brought home tons of memories. Going home was certainly a wonderful experience; it was especially nice to see Ray's familial roots. We were able to visit both Ray's grandmothers, Lola Tilde in Cebu and Lola Lalia in Dipolog. Not only that, but K, T, & I were finally able to see all the things that Ray fondly talked about. K & T are certainly lucky to have had an opportunity to travel back to the Philippines and see where a part of their history. Hopefully, we can take them back to other places back home and show them the rest of it.

Here are our some of our fondest memories in Cebu and Dipolog:

Yaya Emy: We had the opportunity of having Yaya Emy, my old yaya when from birth to 5 years old, take care of K & T. K & T weren't used to having a yaya initially. But by the end of the trip, they were calling her Yaya and were actually letting her take care of them. Oh how I miss her...





Crossing the Raymund Bridge: In one of Ray's family's ancestral homes, a bridge was named after him. This was one of the places Ray wanted to take us to in Cebu.




Karch and Tessa bathing...the Filipino way: K & T experienced how we used to take a bath...with a tabo and pail! They enjoyed going in the pail. It was kind of like their mini tub.




Staying at Tito Ick and Tita Bouger's beach house: Although we only stayed there for one night, it was truly an experience. Everything about the beach house and the environment that surrounds it just emulated serenity.



Reunions: It was too bad we couldn't take tons of pictures of the family altogether. But our trip was certainly filled with reunions. Here we are with Ray's cousin, Julia who K & T just adore (and of course I adore her too!).



Celebrating Lola Tilde's 90th birthday: One of the main reasons why we traveled to Cebu was to celebrate Lola Tilde's 90th birthday with her. It was our Karch actually has the same birthday as Lola Tilde. That's why Karch's full name is Karch Michael (after my Tito Mike) Tilden (after Lola Tilde). Here she is as she arrived at her party. The guests greeted her with the Happy Birthday song. Happy birthday to Lola Tilde! We love you!



The beaches: Even if we stayed at a beach house (Thanks to the Ouanos for accomodating us at their Maribago beach house!) for half of our trip, we only visited the beach 3 times. Our now 3-year old Karch loved the water! Our birthday boy is a true Pisces.



Plantation Bay: Thanks to our Tita Ursula, we had the opportunity to stay at Plantation Bay. We stayed there for the first 2 days of our trip. It was awesome to have a "mini-vacation"
within our vacation!


Visiting Lola Lalia: Our time was so short with Lola Lalia. This was the first time Karch, Tessa, and I have met her. She is one of the sweetest women I have ever met. We can't wait to see her again and to spend a longer time in Dipolog with her.


Hearing stories from the Baliangao Lolas: When we were in Dipolog, we traveled to Baliangao to not only stay at Tito Ick and Tita Bouger's beach house, but to also visit the Baliangao Lolas. They had so many interesting stories to tell us. It was wonderful to hear the Bueno clan's history.


We have so many memories of our trip. The long flight and the jet lag, though painful, were forgotten once we landed and once we arrived and began to scroll through our pictures. We can't wait for our next trip!